He said it was "scary" in the city centre, particularly knowing his daughter and other children were caught up in it.
Gary hastily reported back to Northumberland National Park's headquarters that it appeared that the tree had been cut down deliberately. At this stage there was no time to consider who by or why.Just after 09:00 BST, the National Park alerted colleagues at the National Trust, including general manager Andrew Poad.
"My personal phone started lighting up. Messages were coming through on my laptop."Once I realised it was a deliberate act, crisis mode kicked in," said Andrew, whose priority was to personally inform people before they saw it on social media."It was like ringing people up to tell them that someone had passed away.
"On the day I was using the expression 'it's like losing a loved one'. We all went through that grief."There were numerous members of staff in tears."
Viral photographs shared on social media showed the tree on its side, as the PR teams at the National Park and the National Trust frantically collaborated on an official response.
"Within the hour it was global, effectively," Andrew said.Actor and disability-rights activist Liz Carr, who made
, also opposes the legislation."Some of us have very real fears based on our lived experience and based on what has happened in other countries where it's legal," she wrote on X.
Dr Gordon Macdonald, from campaign group Care Not Killing, said the bill ignores the wider "deep-seated problems in the UK's broken and patchy palliative care system".Labour MSP Pam Duncan-Glancy, the first permanent wheelchair user to be elected to Holyrood, said it could become "easier to access help to die than help to live".